Form a screening of ‘Bless Their Little Hearts’ (Woodberry, 1984, 84 min) with introduction and Q&A hosted by Jacqueline Stewart, co-curator of LA Rebellion at UCLA, May 25, 2013. This disc contains only the discussion with Woodberry; the film is available on RV170.
Set in the same Los Angeles community depicted in Killer of Sheep, and based on an original scenario by that film's director Charles Burnett (who also served as cinematographer), Billy Woodberry's feature debut — a devastating chronicle of a couple (Nate Hardman and Kaycee Moore) whose family is torn apart by events beyond their control — is both the pinnacle and endpoint of the neorealist strand within the L.A. Rebellion. Though Burnett, already an elder statesman and mentor to the UCLA filmmaking community at age 34, was a crucial generative influence on the film, he left Woodberry free rein to develop the material by himself, and the first-time feature director delivered brilliantly. Whereas Burnett's original scenario placed more emphasis on the spiritual crisis of Hardman's Charlie Banks, Woodberry, along with his stars Hardman and Moore, further developed the domestic relationships within the film; the result is a wrenching portrait of a family struggling to stay alive in a world of rapidly vanishing prospects.
Feature and discussion preceded by ‘The Pocketbook’ (Woodberry, 1984, 13 min)